Shipwreckedcrew is a former Federal Prosecutor. Below is a recent post regarding the efforts to Remove Fanny's claims against Trump etc al.
Ok -- regarding the two filings today by Georgia and Mark Meadows over the subject of removal -- responding to the Court's question of what is the effect of there being some overt acts within the scope of Meadows duties, and some acts outside the scope of Meadows duties -- if this was a boxing match in a "10 Point Must System" over 15 rounds, the scorecards of the three judges at ringside would be 150-0 in favor of Meadows.
What is noteworthy about Georgia's filing is the complete absence of a single citation to a federal case saying that if only one of Meadows' acts was outside the scope of his duty then removal is precluded.
The reason for that is that there is no such case.
As the Meadows brief makes clear, there are numerous cases that say if any part of the alleged illegal conduct IS within the scope of his duty then the case gets removed to federal court regardless of what else the state charges in the indictment.
"This proposition is binding precedent under Nadler v. Mann, 951 F.2d 301, 305 n.9 (11th Cir. 1992). There, the Eleventh Circuit addressed jurisdiction under § 1442(a)(1)... in a defamation case against an Assistant U.S. Attorney who was also a candidate for judicial office.... the Court concluded ... that arranging a meeting between a whistleblower and the FBI was an official act but that leaking the investigation to the press was not.... On removal, however, the Court made clear that the entire case was appropriately removed..."
Many other federal courts agree. See, e.g., Baker v. Atl. Richfield Co., 962 F.3d 937, 945 (7th Cir. 2020) (“Assuming for the sake of argument that some of the [plaintiff’s] allegations . . . do not relate to the [defendants’] acts under color of federal office, ‘removal need not be justified as to all claims . . . ; rather, the defense need only apply to one claim to remove the case.”); Morgan v. Huntington Ingalls, Inc., 879 F.3d 602 (5th Cir. 2018); Sawyer v. Foster Wheeler LLC, 860 F.3d 249, 257 (4th Cir. 2017); see also Mesa v. California, 489 U.S. 1, 129 (1989) (“[I]f there be a single such ingredient in the mass, it is sufficient.”).
The State also cannot avoid removal by charging a mix of removable and non- removable conduct. Any contrary rule would lead to absurd results; a State could charge even the most quintessential official act and defeat removal by tacking on unofficial conduct. That would reflect a “narrow, grudging” interpretation the Supreme Court has rejected, Willingham v. Morgan, 395 U.S. 402, 407 (1969), and would invert “the presumption under the federal officer removal statute [which] favors removal, for the benefit of the federal officer involved the case,” In re Asbestos Prod. Liab. Litig. (No. VI), 770 F. Supp. 2d 736, 741 (E.D. Pa. 2011).
Back to me:
The simple reason for this is the purpose of the removal statute -- it is to protect federal officers from being railroaded in state courts, by state officials, in front of state judges.
Fani will still have her shot -- removal doesn't make the case disappear. She'll just have to prove it in a federal court, before a federal judge, and before a jury drawn from a much wider area that just Fulton County.
